Free

 You know that moment, when all is right in the world and nothing beyond your immediate senses seems to matter? Your worries, your troubles, and your hurts cloud up so that you scarcely remember them. Suddenly all of the senses you take for granted become acute. Your emotions slide together until one is not distinguishable from the other. Your heart feels peace; and you know without a shadow of a doubt, that you are home.

            Where is home for you? Perhaps home is where you’ve been raised, or where your family has come from. Or maybe home is somewhere miles and miles away from your roots. My home is on the seashore. Not the ocean, it is far too vast and terrifying for a person like myself, but not the inland either, it is far too hot and dry for me as well. But the place where the waves crash onto the sand and then slide back in retreat… the shoreline. That is my home.

            All my senses come alive, I see the water and I swear it’s a deeper blue every time I blink. I can taste the salt in the air. My ears take in the beat of the ocean. I breathe deeply and that unmistakable peace steals over me; it mixes with the outrageous desire to tear off down the shore. When no one is watching, I give in to it. I run as if I’ll never return. Breathless, I eventually slide to a stop. The water nips playfully at my feet, while a gentle breeze wraps around my shoulders. It is that moment when all is right in the world.

            And I’m free.